Alabama

Business Support Center keeps working after spill

Rick Miller at his desk at the Business Support Center in Gulf Shores. (Press-Register/Guy Busby)

GULF SHORES, Alabama — More than 18 months after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Business Support Center is moving beyond helping stores and restaurants survive and on to finding ways to expand and improve the Gulf Coast economy for the long-term, the facility’s new director said.

The center will continue its efforts to help businesses become more efficient and find new markets, Rick Miller, who took over the director’s position last week, said. Now, however, it’s not a matter of survival, but finding ways to improve an industry that has a multibillion-dollar impact on the region.

“We’re really at the start of a new beginning for lack of a better term,” Miller said. “We’ve gone through the initial reason for the support center, which was just dealing with the crisis. Now what I believe the mission is shifting to is to provide a longer-term business support center that helps existing businesses deal with the economic cycles.”

Economic cycles are a fact of life for coastal businesses, which deal with summer tourists, snowbirds and the threat of hurricanes. The oil spill hit at the start of what should have been the peak of the annual cycle, the summer tourist season.

Early signs indicated that 2010 could set a record. Then the well operated by oil giant BP exploded on April 20. Tourists spent $2.3 billion in 2009 but a year later revenue dropped by 47 percent, according to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Tourism reports.

As the oil approached the Alabama beaches, local chambers of commerce, city governments and others established the center to help businesses survive the economic hit.

In the months after the spill, center employees and volunteers helped local businesses get emergency loans, file claims with BP and find ways to make their operations more efficient.

Many of those lessons, such as organization and finding new markets, can continue to help coastal businesses, Bob Higgins, chairman of the Coastal Resiliency Coalition, which oversees the support center, said.

“One of the things we discovered was that a lot of the companies that came into the original support center said ‘if I’d known this I wouldn’t be in the shape I am now,’” Higgins said.

Earlier this year, the center received a $200,000 grant from the Community Foundation of South Alabama and $50,000 from BP.

“We’ve got enough funding to go for a year or two after that time, we should be able to show that we’re providing a needed service and get more support,” Higgins said.

Far-reaching effects

The economic health of the Gulf Coast does not just affect Baldwin County, Miller said. Taxes from the industry support education and programs throughout Alabama, he said. Last year’s $1 billion downturn had an impact around the state.

This year, tourism numbers are again on the rise, with spending projected to be as much as $2.6 billion. Miller said the Business Support Center can still play a part in helping business grow and finding ways to be less vulnerable to future downturns.

“After a year and a half, what I believe my role will be is to provide support to existing businesses and help them move to a more sustainable business platform, so they aren’t as subject to that seasonality,” Miller said.

Basic support

The center can still help businesses find financing and agencies that can assist them in their needs as well as provide basic support such as budgeting advice, Miller said. He stressed that the center’s job is not to tell people how to run their business.

“I’m not here to come up with some grand program that I think they need,” Miller said. “I find that most businesses know what they need, they just don’t have the time or resources to go make it happen.”

An independent center can also work with competing companies to look for industry trends, he said.

In upcoming months, Miller said he would also like to set up meetings with merchants from other parts of the country who have had to deal with similar issues, such as tourism and seasonal cycles, to allow business owners to discuss ways to improve operations.

Miller received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama in the 1970s and master’s of business administration from Harvard. He worked in western ski resort areas where he dealt with many of the seasonal business issues that affect the Gulf Coast economy as a chief financial officer and consultant.

He said he and his wife decided to return to their native coastal area in 1993 to raise their family.

“I guess you could say I’m a native Mobilian who went away for 20 years and then woke up one day and decided to move back to God’s country,” Miller said.

Anyone wanting more information on the center, located on the Gulf Shores campus of Faulkner State Community College, can call 251-968-3118 or go to www.gulfcoastbsc.com.